Essentials in Conducting Part 11

"Clarinet or cornet in B-flat" means, therefore, an instrument that sounds pitches a whole-step lower than written; "clarinet or cornet in A" means one that sounds pitches a minor third lower than written; "horn in F" means an instrument sounding pitches a perfect fifth lower than written (because F is a perfect fifth below C); while the "clarinet in E-flat" sounds pitches a minor third higher than written.

Whether the pitches sounded are higher or lower than the notes indicate will have to be learned by experience or study.

If the pa.s.sage marked Fig. 1 were to be orchestrated so as to give the highest voice to the clarinet and the lowest to the horn, the clarinet and horn parts would appear as shown in Fig. 2.

[Music: Fig. 1]

[Music: Fig. 2

Clarinet in B-[flat]

Horns in F]

In order to make this information more specific, we add a table showing the keys of the original and transposed parts. The practical band man expresses the substance of this table tersely by saying, "subtract 3 sharps or 2 flats."

ORIGINAL KEY TRANSPOSED KEY KIND OF INSTRUMENT C D B-flat G B-flat A D F A A C A E G A B D A F-sharp A A C-sharp E A F G B-flat B-flat C B-flat E-flat F B-flat A-flat B-flat B-flat D-flat E-flat B-flat G-flat A-flat or A B-flat or A C-flat D-flat B-flat

[Sidenote: REASONS FOR TRANSPOSING INSTRUMENTS]

The princ.i.p.al reasons for the use of transposing instruments are: first, because certain sizes of instruments produce a better quality of tone than others (_e.g._, the B-flat clarinet sounds better than the C clarinet); and second, because it is easier to play in keys having a smaller number of sharps and flats, and by transposing the parts to other keys, we can usually get rid of several sharps or flats.

In the case of performers on the clarinet, each player is necessarily provided with two instruments (an A and a B-flat--the C clarinet being almost obsolete, and the E-flat being used only in military bands); but in playing upon the bra.s.s wind instruments the same instrument may be tuned in various keys, either by means of a tuning slide or by inserting separate _shanks_ or _crooks_, these latter being merely additional lengths of tubing by the insertion of which the total length of the tube const.i.tuting the instrument may be increased, thus throwing its fundamental pitch into a lower key.

In order to gain facility in dealing with transposed parts, the amateur is advised to try his hand at arranging simple music (hymn tunes, folk songs, easy piano pieces, _et cetera_) for his group of players, transposing the parts for clarinets, cornets, _et cetera_, into the appropriate keys. In this way he will also get an insight into the mysteries of instrumental combination that cannot be secured in any other way.

[Sidenote: PITCH STANDARDS]

The first difficulty that the conductor of an amateur ensemble group usually encounters is that the instruments owned by his players are tuned according to various pitch standards; and he is very likely to find at his first rehearsal that his first-clarinet player has an instrument tuned in "high pitch," _i.e._, what is commonly known as concert pitch (about one half step above standard), while his second-clarinet player has an instrument in "low pitch," _i.e._, international, a' having 435 vibrations per second. (There is also a third pitch which is used by many of the standard symphony orchestras--this pitch being based upon a vibration rate of 440 for a'). If the conductor attempts to have his orchestra perform under these conditions, disaster will surely overtake him, and he will not only find his ears suffering tortures, but will be more than likely to hear uncomplimentary remarks from the neighbors, and will be fortunate indeed not to be ordered on to the next block or the next town by the police force! The difficulty arises, of course, because the oboe, English horn, clarinet, and other wood-wind instruments are built in a certain fixed pitch, and since the length of the tube cannot be altered, they must either play in the pitch intended or else not at all. In the case of the clarinet and flute, the pitch can be altered a very little by pulling out one of the joints slightly (the tube is made in several sections) thus making the total length slightly greater and the pitch correspondingly lower; but when this is done the higher tones are very apt to be out of tune, and in general, if the player has an instrument tuned in high pitch, he cannot play with an ensemble group having low-pitched instruments, especially when the piano supplies the fundamental harmony. In the case of the bra.s.s instruments, a tuning slide is usually provided, and the same instrument can therefore be utilized in either low or high pitch combinations.[27]

[Footnote 27: "High pitch" is employed mostly in bands; the reason for its use being that the wind instruments are much more brilliant when tuned to the higher pitch. It is encouraging to be able to state, however, that more and more instruments are being built in "philharmonic pitch" (a' 440), and the conductor who is organizing a band or orchestra is advised to see to it that all players who are purchasing new instruments insist upon having them built in this pitch.]

[Sidenote: TUNING]

The conductor of an amateur ensemble group will find it very greatly to his advantage to be able to tune the various instruments, or at least to help the players to do it accurately. This involves not merely a mechanical knowledge of what to do to the instrument to change its pitch, but, what is much more important, a very high degree of pitch discrimination on the conductor's part. It is at this latter point that a.s.sistance is most often necessary, and the conductor who can tell his cornet player when he is just a shade high or low, and can determine precisely when the violinist has his strings tuned to an absolutely perfect fifth, will have far less trouble with out-of-tune playing than otherwise; for a great deal of sharping and flatting (particularly in the case of wind instruments) is the result of inaccurate tuning.

[Sidenote: BOWING]

Since an orchestra contains such a large proportion of stringed instruments it will be very greatly to the interest of the conductor to take up the study of some instrument belonging to the violin family, and to learn to play it at least a little. If this is altogether impracticable at the beginning, the next best thing for him to do is to study bowing, learning not only the bowing signs and their meaning, but familiarizing himself thoroughly with the principles underlying the art. For this purpose some good work on bowing should be studied, but meanwhile a few words on the subject at this point will give the absolute beginner at least a small amount of indispensable information. The signs commonly employed in music for violin, viola, violoncello, and double-ba.s.s, to indicate various manners of bowing, are as follows:

[down-bow symbol] Down-bow: _i.e._, from nut to point.

[up-bow symbol] Up-bow: _i.e._, from point to nut.

[slur symbol] Slurred: _i.e._, all notes under the sign played in one bow.

[slur over staccato symbol] Staccato: _i.e._, all notes in one bow, but the tones separated.

The ordinary staccato mark ([dot staccato symbol] or [wedge staccato symbol]) means a long quick stroke, either up or down as the case may be. The absence of slurs indicates a separate stroke of the bow for each tone. Sometimes the player is directed to use the lower half, the upper half, or the middle of the bow, such directions being given by printing the words "lower half," _et cetera_, above the pa.s.sage, or by giving the initials of these words (sometimes in German). When no bowing is indicated, a phrase beginning with a weak beat commonly has an up-bow for the first tone, while one beginning on a strong beat has a down-bow; but this principle has many exceptions. It is perhaps needless to state that correct phrasing in the case of the stringed instruments depends upon the employment of suitable bowing; and since the first violin part is most prominent and most important in orchestral music, it becomes the business of the conductor to observe most carefully the bowing of his concert-master and to confer with him about possible changes in bowing wherever necessary. It will save a great deal of confusion if players understand that the bowing is to be exactly as indicated in the score unless a change is definitely made.

The first player in each group in point of position on the platform is called the "princ.i.p.al," and is supposed to be the most skilful performer in that section; and he is responsible, in conference with the conductor when necessary, for selecting the best bowing, _et cetera_, all others in the group watching him, and all phrasing as he does. In actual practice, this means that the players at the second desk bow like those at the first, those at the third desk follow those at the second, _et cetera_. Absolute uniformity is thus secured in each section. It should perhaps be remarked at this point that when different groups are playing the same phrase, _e.g._, violoncellos and ba.s.ses, or second violins and violas, the bowing must be uniform in the two sections, if absolute uniformity of phrasing is to result.

In addition to the bowing signs explained on page 103, the conductor should also be familiar with certain other directions commonly found in music for stringed instruments. Some of the most important of these, together with their explanations, are therefore added.

_Pizzicato_ (_pizz._) (pluck the string instead of bowing)

_Col arco_ (or _arco_) (play with the bow again)

_Con sordino_, or } _Avec sourdine_ } (affix the mute to the bridge)

_Senza sordino_, or } _Sans sourdine_ } (remove the mute)

_Divisi_ (_div._) (divide, _i.e._, let some of the players take one of the two tones indicated and the remainder of them the other one. This direction is of course used only in case two or more notes appear on the staff for simultaneous performance. It is customary to divide such pa.s.sages by having the players seated on the side next the audience take the higher tone, while the others take the lower. If the section is to be divided into more than two parts, the conductor must designate who is to play the various tones.)

[Sidenote: SCORE READING]

Reading an orchestral score is a matter for the professional rather than for the amateur; and yet the great increase during recent years in the number of amateur orchestras probably means that more and more of these groups will continue their practice until they are able to play a more difficult cla.s.s of music--this involving the necessity on the part of their conductors of learning to read an orchestral score.

For this reason a few suggestions upon _score reading_ are added as a final paragraph in this chapter, and an example of a score is supplied at the end of the book--Appendix B (p. 166.)

The main difficulties involved in reading a full score are: first, training the eye to read from a number of staffs simultaneously and a.s.sembling the tones (in the mind or at the keyboard) into chords; and second, transposing into the actual key of the composition those parts which have been written in other keys and including these as a part of the harmonic structure. This latter difficulty may be at least partially overcome by practice in arranging material for orchestra as recommended on page 101; but for the first part of the task, extensive practice in reading voices on several staffs is necessary. The student who is ambitious to become an orchestral conductor is therefore advised, in the first place, not to neglect his Bach during the period when he is studying the piano, but to work a.s.siduously at the two- and three-part inventions and at the fugues. He may then purchase miniature scores of some of the string quartets by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, training himself to read all four parts simultaneously, sometimes merely trying to hear mentally the successive harmonies as he looks at the score, but most often playing the parts on the piano.

After mastering four voices in this way, he is ready to begin on one of the slow movements of a Haydn symphony.

In examining an orchestral score, it will be noted at once that the string parts are always together at the bottom of the page, while the wood-wind material is at the top. Since the strings furnish the most important parts of the harmonic structure for so much of the time, our amateur will at first play only the string parts, with the possible addition of the flute, oboe, and certain other non-transposed voices a little later on. But as he gains facility he will gradually be able to take in all the parts and to include at least a sort of summary of them all in his playing. The student is advised to purchase a number of the Haydn and Mozart symphonies either in the form of pocket editions or in the regular conductor's score, and to practise on these until he feels quite sure of himself. By this time he will be ready to try his hand at a modern score, which will be found not only to contain parts for more instruments, but many more divided parts for the strings. Meanwhile, he is, of course, taking every possible opportunity of attending concerts given by symphony orchestras, and is begging, borrowing, or buying the scores of as many of the compositions as possible, studying them in advance, and taking keen delight in following them at the performance; perhaps even imagining himself to be the conductor, and having visions of changes in interpretation that he would like to make if he were directing. As the result of several years of this sort of study, even an amateur may get to the point where he is able to conduct an orchestra from a full score with some degree of skill, and hence with some little satisfaction both to himself and to the performers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TABLE SHOWING RANGES OF ORCHESTRAL INSTRUMENTS

_Note:_ The arrangement of instruments here indicated is essentially that found in a modern orchestral score. The ranges given represent practical orchestral usage. Additional tones possible for highly skilled performers or on instruments with certain special keys (like the low _b_ of the flute) are shown in brackets.]

CHAPTER XI

DIRECTING THE CHURCH CHOIR

[Sidenote: THE PROBLEM]

In taking up the special problems of conducting involved in directing a church choir, we shall first of all need to consider the dual nature of church music--its religio-artistic aspect, and in studying the matter from this standpoint we shall soon discover that most of the difficulties that have encompa.s.sed church music in the past can be traced directly or indirectly to a conflict or a lack of balance between these two factors. The churchman has not been sufficiently interested in the _art_ side of church music, while the music director, organist, and singers have all too frequently been not only entirely out of sympathy with the religious work of the church, but have usually been wholly ignorant concerning the purpose and possibilities of music in the church service. The result in most churches at the present time is either that the music is vapid or even offensive from the art standpoint; or else that it emphasizes the purely artistic side so strongly that it entirely fails to perform its function as an integral part of a service whose _raison d'etre_ is, of course, to inculcate religious feeling. "The church wishes for wors.h.i.+p in music, but not for the wors.h.i.+p of music," is said to have been the statement of Father Haberl at the Saint Cecilia Conference in Mainz (1884).[28] And it is indeed a far cry from this demand to the very evident deification of music that exists in many of our modern city churches, with their expensive soloists and their utter failure to cause music to minister as "the handmaid of religion." The problem is not a new one, and in a book written about a century ago the author says:[29]

The guiding rule which ought always to be present to the mind of a clergyman should also be held in mind by all good musicians who would help the church's object, and not employ the sacred building merely as a place where all kind of sounds that tickle the ear can be heard. All kinds of music are suitable for sacred use that do not raise secular a.s.sociations. A _Largo_, an _Adagio_, a _Grave_, an _Andante_, an _Allegro_, a fugal or a non-fugal composition can all be performed in the Church but should one and all be of a staid and dignified character throughout, elevated and sober, and of such a nature that any preacher of note could say: "This splendid music is a fitting introduction to my discourse"; or "After such singing my lips had better be closed, and the spirit left to its own silent wors.h.i.+p."

[Footnote 28: Quoted by Curwen on the t.i.tle page of _Studies in Wors.h.i.+p Music_ (second series).]

[Footnote 29: Thibaut, _Purity in Music_, translated by Broadhouse, p.

24.]

A distinguished modern writer voices the same thought in the following words:[30]

The singing of the choir must be contrived and felt as part of the office of prayer. The spirit and direction of the whole service for the day must be unified; the music must be a vital and organic element in this unit.

[Footnote 30: d.i.c.kinson, _Music in the History of the Western Church_, p. 401.]